GENDERED JOURNALISM CULTURES STRATEGIES AND TACTICS IN THE FIELDS OF JOURNALISM IN BRITAIN AND SWEDEN MARGARETA MELIN JMG Department of Journalism and Mass Communication University of Göteborg Malmö, 2008 © Margareta Melin 2008 Published by JMG, Department of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of Göteborg Front cover photo by Lajos Varhegyi Back cover photo by Hjalmar Dahm Printed by Holmbergs in Malmö AB ISBN 978-91-88212-58-0 ISSN 1101-4652 Contents Contents ReCoGnItIONS: Between me and InsanIty stand my friends 3 1. INTRODUCtIONS: JoURNEYS TOWARDS AN aPPROACH 5 1. A Thesis of Gendered Journalism Cultures 6 2. The Studies – Theoretical and Methodological Foundations 7 3. My Approach 12 4. The Rest of the Text 14 2. exPosItIons: The Field, tHe PosItIon, tHe ConCePts 17 I. THE FI ELD O F JOURNL I SM ST UD I ES 20 1. From Functionalist Homogeneity… 20 2 …via Pockets of Dissent… 28 3 …and Feminist Opposition… 32 4 …to a Crossroad of Approaches. 49 II. MY POS iti ON : JOURNAL I SM AS CUL T URE 52 1.Searching for a Useful Concept 53 2. The Social Field of Journalism 56 3. Looking at Social Fields with Feminist Spectacles 62 III. THEORE tic AL CON C E pt S USED 69 1. Journalism Culture 70 2. Social Fields 70 3. Doxa 72 4. Strategies and Tactics 73 5. Gender 74 1 Gendered Journalism Cultures 3. InterpretatIons: ResUlts fRom stUdIes of two cultures 77 I. CHARA ct ER I S tic S O F T WO JOURNAL I SM CUL T URES 78 1. Main Results of Journalist ´89 78 2. Main Results of the British Studies 81 3. Two or Three Journalism Cultures? 83 II. Diff EREN C ES BE T WEEN TWO JOURNAL I SM CUL T URES 88 1. Fields: Education, Education, Education! 88 2. Doxa: Swedish Educators and British Bloodhounds 95 3. Strategies: Sexism, Racism and Alcoholism 104 4. Tactics: Sexy Marionettes Getting Place and Power 108 III. SI M I LAR PA tt ERNS IN T HE TWO JOURNAL I SM CUL T URES 113 1. Fields: The Gender Logic of Journalism 113 2. Doxa: Hard News and Distant Neutrality 123 3. Strategies: Social Bankers and Symbolic Violence 130 4. Tactics: Fight or Flight – Coping with Journalism 144 5. Male Opposition 168 4. RefleCtIons: on GendeRed JournalIsm CUltures 177 1. Fields: Feminisation + Commercialisation=? 178 2. Doxa: Gendered Gentrification 187 3. Strategies and Tactics: Essentialism and Education 200 5. ConClUtIons: CReatInG and UpholdInG GendeRed JournalIsm CUltures 207 1. Theoretical Conclusions 207 2. Conclusions on Differences between the Two Journalism Cultures 210 3. Conclusions on Similarities: Strategies and Tactics used to Fight for Doxa on the Field of Journalism 213 4. Visualisation of Gendered Journalism Cultures 221 notes 223 Chapter 1 223 Chapter 2 223 Chapter 3 228 Chapter 4 231 Chapter 5 232 AppendIx: an oveRvIew of tHe InteRvIewed Uk JournalIsts 233 RefeRenCes 239 2 Recognitions RECOGNITIONS BETWEEN ME AND INSANITY STAND MY FRIENDS This book is a thesis on gendered journalism cultures. It is about the way strategies and tactics are used on the fields of journalism in Britain and Sweden. Doing the studies, analysing them, writing about them, reanalysing and writing, and then writing this book has taken some years. Now, 250 odd pages, a couple of kids, a near-death-experience, a couple of operations, a wheel-chair or two, masses of pain-killers, and many new thoughts down the line, I have created an exciting analysis out of near forgotten results. This has been a thrilling and stimulating journey. Naturally, no one can pull a project like this off without a little help from one’s friends. And many are those who have helped me. First and foremost, my two su- pervisors – whom I also count amongst my dearest friends – have been invaluable in getting this project across the finishing line. Thank you Bo Reimer, for academi- cally and personally steering and supporting me, and giving me strength. Always. Thank you Ylva Gislén, for bossing my rehabilitation and for being lovingly firm, frank and fantastic. Five colleagues have had a particularly large input into the project. Thank you Lajos Varhegyi, you image of cool, for really cool images (see cover) and for always being there when I needed some someone or some help. Thank you, my comrades in arms, Magnus Andersson, Monika Djerf Pierre, Monica Löfgren Nilsson, Pernilla 3 Gendered Journalism Cultures Severson, for reading and commenting the various versions of this book, for your everyday company over the years and your friendship. There are plenty of colleagues from several places down the road who have provided, exciting, eclectic, yet embracing educational environments where I have worked and produced elements for this dissertation. It is difficult to mention ev- eryone, but four people in particular helped me in the early part of the project. Thank you Lennart Weibull and Kent Asp (Göteborg University) for supervision when conducting the first of my studies. And thanks Kent for your input on the final versions of this book. Thank you John Eldridge (Glasgow University Media Group) for being a magnificent mentor and for inviting me to Scotland! And Marc Percival (Queen Margaret University) for being a brilliant room-mate, co-driver and a dead-good pal. And huge and manifold thank yous to all my colleagues at K3 (Shool of Arts and Communication, Malmö University), old and new, for providing a kaleido- scopic, keen, kind kingdom of knowledge. Particular thanks to Inger Lindstedt and Cristine Sarrimo for your continuous encouragement. And to Per Linde and Kajsa Lindskog for invaluable help with the design of this book. There are friends, other than colleagues, who also have directly helped me with this book. Thank you Maria Hellström, Gösta Lempert, Tina Thunander, Hasse and Lisa Österlund for delightful dinners and delicious discussions. Diana Beatty, Anne and Martin Dunbar, Ray Hemett, and Polly Smith, for wining, dining and lodging me during my field studies (of various sorts). Finally, I would be nowhere without my loving family. So my deepest gratitude to: Anne Griffin, my late mother-in-law for being an inspiring role-model. Frank Higgins for admirable endurance. Sister Maria and brother Jan for being so annoy- ingly argumentative (and just so you know, Maria, Bourdieu’s theory is usable!). Hjalmar Dahm for giving me love, light and laughter. My children Freya and Liam for teaching me so much about life. My parents Norma and Tore for always being there. Malmö, May 2008 Margareta Melin 4 Introductions 1. INTRODUCTIONS JOURNEYS TOWARDS AN APPROACH In January 1992 I loaded my car with a suitcase full of some clothes, a box of books and my Apple Mac (Classic) and headed for Northern Britain. My goal for the fol- lowing six moths was very clear; as a British Institute paid guest-researcher at the Glasgow University Media Group I intended to study British journalism culture to be able to make a comparison with a study on Swedish journalists, in which I had been involved (cf. Weibull, 1991; Melin, 1991a; Melin-Higgins, 1996a; 1996b; 1996c). It did not quite happen the way I had planned. Both my life and the study took turns I never foresaw. It was only much later I realised that leaving Göteborg that January morning was the start of a long journey for me both personally and professionally. In place at the Glasgow University Media Group (GUMG), I realised that I was not in Northern Britain at all, but in central Scotland. Issues of nationality, religion, class, diverse cultures, gender, sexuality, became overwhelmingly obvious to me, and I spent most of my visit mapping out and trying to understand the new world that had opened up to me. That meant fundamental theoretical and methodologi- cal changes to the project I had started. An eon later, and a universe away, sitting in a beautiful studio at Malmö University, over-looking the Öresund, tapping on my neat little G4, visiting the web to download journal articles, I realise how much 5 Gendered Journalism Cultures that Glasgow visit meant to me – again personally and professionally (one can never distinguish fully between the two). The reason this text is in existence is the possibilities hindsight has given me. By looking back at these journeys I made, by looking back at three studies I made in three countries, over a period of thirteen years, I am able to see patterns not obvious to me when in the midst of the process. Hindsight furthermore enables me to draw conclusions from comparisons in space and over time. And perhaps most importantly, I am able to move from an analysis of a specific study to an analysis of studies, i.e. to move more onto a meta-level of analysis. 1. A THESIS OF GENDERED JOURNALISM CULTURES My aim with this thesis is to seek an understanding of the way fields of journalism work. I seek an understanding of journalism cultures and I explore the gendered nature of them. I do this by looking at two fields of journalism – that of Sweden and the UK – over one time period – the 1990s and the first years of the new mil- lennium. I base this thesis on three studies. One, in Sweden, 1989, that I have already published findings from in several texts, and two, in the UK 1992 and again in 1998-2002, that I have only partly previously written about. Three texts will constitute the foundation of this thesis: this book and two pre- viously published texts. The first of these, Pedagoger och spårhundar. En studie av svenska journalisters yrkesideal (Educators and Bloodhounds.